Photography and me

Photography and me

Since I bought several years ago my Digital Rebel camera and returned to what is my favorite pastime, photography. What started out as a way to document the life of my new newborn daughter, Madeleine, at the time became something more much meaningful to me. Finally, I has the means to express myself creatively.

I started out with the basic camera kit and over time, I added lenses, a flash unit and other accessories in my attempt to improve the quality of my photography. When I walk around town with my camera hanging down my chest, a camera bag slung over my shoulder and a tripod clutched in one hand all the while framing and peering at possible shots, I look very much like someone who wants to get the most out of his photography.

The Past

The way I photograph now is much different than I received my first camera , from my father,in the early 80’s, a sixties vintage Minolta viewfinder. It was his first camera and it was a beauty. I was happy to take pictures of people and places and learn a bit about setting apertures and shutter speeds. I studied books about techniques and tried to emulate them as I could. For two years or so, I took dozens of pictures, limited only by the cost of film and developing. I always worked within the available light as I did not had any flash units nor any accessories. But at some point, the camera was damaged and never repaired. My initial brush with amateur photography came to an end and I never touched a camera again for another ten years. Yet, during that time I always fondly remembered the joy when I was able to photographed to my heart’s delight.

In 1996, when I was assigned to a job in Germany and given the opportunity to see Europe, I bought myself another camera. If I was going to Europe and traveled around the continent then I will going to make sure I was going to photograph it extensively. But I did not get a SLR or anything too sophisticated. It was a Pentax 35mm compact that had a zoom lens and a built in flash and some default modes including a panoramic setting. The ability to slip it into my pocket was useful; I could take it out on a as needed basis and never betrayed that I was a visitor and not a local.

Being a compact camera, I had little control over its functions other than the zoom and choosing between a few modes(flash, portrait, landscape): point and shoot was all that was required as the camera took care of the settings. So this allowed me to focus on the image and composition. That camera served me well taking pictures in Germany, Austria, Paris, and London giving me a treasureful of memories. Over the year I was there, I built an extensive library of images, dutifully printed and stored in photo albums.

Yet returning home, the camera was shelved away. I never bother to do much with it outside of letting it accompany me on trips to New York City. When it was lost somewhere in a move, I did not felt much of a loss and if I needed to record something, disposable film camera served just as well for me.

However, I remained interested in photography and for several years, I read about the ongoing advancements in digital photography and its inevitable replacement of film photography. I had already decided that my next camera was to be a SLR because I wanted to return to the time when I had my father’s Minolta where I had the ability to control all aspects of taking a photograph.

Still, going digital was  unrealised for for several years as there was a large gulf between price and quality of digital cameras from the small 1-3 megapixel compacts to the the DSLRs which were cost thousands of dollars at the time. It is when Canon came out with their breakout Digital Rebel camera that the cost and quality balance was finally reached. It still took me a year of saving to commit myself to buying the camera but when I did buy it, things changed for me.

A year of trial and error

With the camera, I started out taking basic shots just to get a feel for the camera. I used the standard modes at first so that I could get immediate feedback on what the camera was capable of and of what I was capable of in using the camera without worrying about f-stops and shutter speeds. I soon graduated out of that and started using the advance modes of photography mainly with the aperture -priority mode. When Madeleine came along, I bought the flash and started to work on using the flash properly adjusting its power and finessing my bounce technique.

At the same time, I kicked off my blog to start recording my thoughts as well as providing an outlet for my images. This burst of creativity of prose and image was remarkable. I found my thoughts drifting towards to my next session with the camera, seeing what I could do with it.

Using digital gave me the freedom to take as many pictures I would want without worrying about the cost and I was taking a lot of shots. Now I could bracket my shots with aperture adjustments or exposure compensations to get the near ideal shot. Needless to say, there are a lot of wasted images and images that I would not have taken if I was using film. Managing my photo images files became a much needed chore for me.

Naturally there were lulls and peaks of activity during the course of the year. Many of my photo sessions were driven by requests from the family and friends for new pictures of Madeleine so I complied. A trip to the mountains in May proved also to be quite productive as well as Christen’s recital. But I felt limited by the lens the camera came with as some of the shots I took proved to be poor quality and needed extensive post production work. So I invested in higher quality lenses especially for the portrait work of Madeleine and started building up my equipment.

The following autumn saw a fury of photography as I was driven to capture the fall colours in the Blue Ridge mountains as well as locally here in Winston. Over a period of several days, I packed my gear and trodden to places where I rarely ever visit. Perspectives change when you are walking through a neighbourhood rather than drive through it. At the same time I was taking autumn photographs, I explored other themes: churches, local street scenes, and night time photographs. At the end, I shot well over 700 images during that period. In retrospect, I was just getting started.

The Present

Since that first year of discovering my photography potential, I am still fully immersed in my photography. While still a hobby, I found out that it has been lucrative as well as I have done commission work for a Church magazine, found my photos being sourced for local websites and even inspiration for other people’s art. Even my company has found use for me to record the social events that occur as well as custom portrait look.

Also, because of the increasing volume of photos I had, I use Flickr as my main photo hosting site. Several thousand of my photos now reside there from the snapshots of a family event to the more polished photos of car shows and dancers

The Future

Like everything else in my life right now, I find myself pulled in multiple directions for my time and it probably will be that way for awhile. So my photography tends to come in bursts, usually focused around an event. With these events, the photos tend to lean more of the snap shot quality but even then, I try to find the unique shot that makes a difference.

Sometimes, though,  I wonder if I could get anything more out of the subjects I focus on of late. How many more autumn photos can I take, I wonder to myself. Yet, every year, I find some new perspective on a subject and find myself renewed once more.

I wonder too, if I could ever make a viable career out of photography. It seems that everyone with a decent DSLR camera thinks that they are a few steps away from a second career; a website, a few photos, some recognition and people will start buying your photos and services. In reality, it is much, much harder than that. Like anything else in life, to be really good at something, you need to spend years on your craft. I really can not make that commitment.

Still, I never let that stop me from becoming a better photographer. I will keep on learning; I will buy the equipment to indulge my creative bent and if I manage to get some commission work here and there, well, perhaps it will be a self-financing hobby.

More than anything else, though, I really enjoy being behind the camera.